The Grand Scheme
by SuperMastour
Summary: A terrible and destructive foe is destined to return to scourge the world once again, and it is up to Jenos the Ascended to put and end to the adversary he had faced long ago. For a god, this should be a small feat, but the journey he will take will put him in situations even he would struggle to comprehend. Main Character(s): Jenos. Chapter 2 is up.
1. Chapter 1

**The Grand Scheme**

 **PROLOGUE**

* * *

There he drifted through the void of space.  
Awakened.  
Emboldened.  
Empowered.

Deified.

What was once a young man with few things to go for is now on the pinnacle of creation.  
His eyes shone like the sun.  
His aura was resplendent.

But below him was the exact opposite.

A darkness beyond comprehension.  
A void of pure nothingness.  
Invisible except for the threatening flaming aura it gained as it siphoned a moon.

In the center of this void was another man, his skin corrupted by darkness and his body surrounded by rapidly rotating mystical power.

"This is it Master! This is the power of the Void!" that man yelled as he made the power rotate around him even more rapidly.  
"What you have rejected will be your end."

The other man hovered stoically as another celestial body was absorbed by the darkness.

"Everything you wanted is worthless! The only thing that matters in this world, and in all the others, is power!" the man in the void added.  
"Behold! I am more powerful than all of creation, Master Jenos! But you, you peaceful coward, you are nothing!"

"You are a mistake." Jenos murmured as he felt the Void's power grow.  
"I never should have taken you under my teachings, Gnosos. To think the young boy I raised up would turn out to be such a disaster."

"The Void may be a disaster, but it is also power!" Gnosos crossed his arms, "Power you will never reach!"

"My teachings were never about power." Jenos responded, "They were about reaching everlasting harmony with all of creation. You have corrupted the signs of the heavens for your own selfish gain-"

Jenos stopped when he felt the firmament of heaven shake.

Even though he was millions of lightyears away from his homeworld, he held a deep worry for the fate of that place.  
Everything he had left to ascend beyond the stars was still on his mind.  
The people that he had talked to.  
The parents he had loved.  
The disciples he had left behind.

"This is it! Gravity at its most perfect rotation!" Gnosos screamed in malevolent joy as the black hole around him started to grow rapidly in size.

"What the!?" Jenos gasped as he felt a surge of raw power blast through his body.  
"I-I can't move!"

"Behold the power of the Void!" Gnosos pointed at his former master, the gravitational rotation swirling around him even more noticeably than before.

Jenos' glowing eyes widened behind his mask as he noticed he was now in the Void's accretion disk.

"All of creation will be part of the Void!" his adversary yelled above the chaos of stars and planets being absorbed.  
"And nothing can stop it!"

Jenos called upon his cosmic power and started to try his hardest to fly away from the pull, but it was all in vain.  
"Gnosos! Stop this at once!" he called out to his fallen student.

Gnosos did not even bother to pay respond to him and chuckled to himself.  
"So this is the power of the perfect gravitational rotation…" he felt his own power surge through his body.  
"Such power…" he looked up from the singularity of the Void and saw the fabric of Space-Time tear like an old curtain.

Jenos was now in the event horizon and he saw the same things.  
His divine vision shifted dynamically from various points in time and space, all of them being absorbed by this phenomenon.  
"What power…" he managed to gasp out as he felt his being shift between reality.

"I will have dominion over everything because everything will be part of the Void!"

Jenos had enough.  
He knew the time had come to make a decision.  
Even though the end of the Universe was at hand, it was still a difficult choice to make.  
He had raised Gnosos as his own son, and even though he had detached himself from earthly connections, he still held a deep care for his favored disciple.

"Gnosos… Why?"

At that question Gnosos' arrogance suddenly stopped in its tracks. He was befuddled and dazed by such a question. However, this was only for a moment as that shock was replaced by rage.  
"You neglected my potential! You cursed me for seeking what was good for me!"

"Life is about sacrifice… It is better for one to not have what was good for them if others can."

"The others admire power! They adore he who has strength! They find joy in him as well!" Gnosos retorted.  
"That is the one lesson you will never teach nor learn Master!"

"Please, Gnosos. I appeal to you as not your master… but as a father…"

"You are no father of mine."

Jenos, a god, could not hold back the pain that came to strike him after those words.  
"Then I have no choice…"

The Ascended suddenly stopped in his tracks as he started to glow.

Gnosos gasped.  
"What!?"

"Gnosos, I must stop you!" Jenos growled as he charged his divine powers.  
"Though the power of the Void is mighty, it will not prevent me from saving the cosmos!"

"You are a fool to challenge the Void!" Gnosos roared.  
"Especially when I hold the perfect gravitational rotation!" he stretched out his arm and fired a spiraling beam of null energy.

Jenos could not prevent being struck by it and was sent flying back; however, this was not the end of his troubles.  
"AH!" Jenos groaned as he felt his body and spirit swirl. He felt a violent tugging dragging him, and drag him it did.  
Jenos' being shifted through time and space more rapidly than when he was in the event horizon.

Gnosos could see his master struggle to comprehend his fate.  
"As I speak, Jenos, your body and soul are being dragged through all facets of reality in a looping cycle. If you were a mortal, you would have died in the first few shifts, but as a god, well… You are endlessly trapped until the Void consumes all of creation. This is the power you neglected!"

Jenos mustered up his divine powers but could not stop shifting.

"As you have abandoned the world, you also abandon a concrete place in time and space." Gnosos gloated in his victory.

Jenos sighed.  
The hour had come.

"Did you say… Time and Space?" he called out.  
"Well… There is one master of both. A master forged from humility and peace. A master who was blessed ages ago. A master who understood that harmony between his world and all of creation was above all things. A master, who by that understanding, came to hold powers even immortals would struggle to comprehend."

Gnosos stopped and stared at his master through the Void's power.

Jenos stopped shifting for a moment, his arms cupped behind his waist and his body hunched over, "Powers that extend Through Time and Space!"

Gnosos' dark red eyes shot open in shock.

"Gnosos, there was still so much for you to learn! But I will show it to you now! BEHOLD!" Jenos yelled at the top of his lungs as a blue aura of spiraling cosmic energy came out from him.  
"THE LIGHT!"

Gnosos saw his master shine in a golden aura before a beam of pure power came towards him.  
"Impossible!" he cried out as the beam tore through the shifts.

The fallen disciple cried out and fled into the Void, but the beam followed even thence.

Even in the singularity, where nothing, not even the light of creation could escape, the beam traveled. Nothing Gnosos was doing could stop its incoming impact.  
Not switching between spaces.  
Not switching between times.  
Not even the safety of the Void that he had put all his faith into could save him.

"Master… Please!"

Jenos maintained silence as he watched his beam get nearer and nearer.

"MASTER!"

"Life… is about sacrifice…."

"MASTERRRR! AUUGHHHHHHHHH!" Gnosos screamed as the beam started to consume him.

0000000000

Jenos returned to his time and space and looked to where Gnosos and the void once were. However, he soon fell to his knees and held his heart.

"Never again will this happen…"


	2. Chapter 2

**The Grand Scheme**

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

It was now ages since the incident, the cosmos were at peace and the powers that threatened reality were for a long time absent.

There was, however, a threat still lingering in the heart of Jenos, who hovered in the midst of the Lotus Constellation he himself formed.

Though this threat could have better been explained by the injuries the Ascended received which still plagued him to this day.  
His thousand-year meditation was the culmination of not only maintaining peace in the cosmic forces, but also of trying to find a way to heal the effect that the Void's perfect gravitational rotation had left in him.

This effect was that, at times, a part of Jenos' power would be displaced momentarily, just as his body and spirit had been shifted when he was struck by the Void. So far, he has not found a relief from it.

But the times were changing, nothing was the same as it was a millennium ago, especially in the world he had left. Though he had no true intentions of monitoring it, he nonetheless fell prey to his curiosity and looked at it a few times during his period of rest.

"Mortals. Going to and fro without a care." Jenos spoke to himself as he counted the stars in the sky, "Yet… I was once one."

He continued hovering in deep space before turning away from the direction of his homeworld. "Their concerns are not mine, I must stay in my abode and continue my responsibilities."

He nonetheless turned back.

There, millions of light years away, was the planet he once called home.

He remembered the time he spent there.  
His family.  
His childhood friends.  
His first love.  
His pets.

"That's all in the past now. Trivial things." Jenos shook his head and continued soaring across the night sky.  
Yet he stopped. But no because of the memories, but because the constellations up ahead of him.

The Scorpion.

The same constellation where the battle between him and his fallen disciple had taken place ages ago.

It was glowing brightly with a deep red aura surrounding it.

Jenos' attention immediately rose up, and he raced towards the location as quickly as he could with many thoughts racing through his mind.

Is the Void present once again?

Is he back?

No, it couldn't be.  
He himself struck down his enemy.  
He himself wrested the Void into obscurity.

Yes, with the defeat of the fallen one, the Void's power had greatly decreased.

But had it returned?

Jenos stopped right in the presence of the Scorpion constellation, yet there was nothing there. He scoured the cosmos in front of him carefully and diligently in search of any anomalies.

Yet nothing.

"What?" Jenos looked around and saw nothing once more. He then tried the next best option, he reached for the stars.

A vision.

Jenos' mind was plucked from the present world into a prophetic moment.

A man with a glowing red aura stood in front of him, glaring at the world he came from. This man raised his arms as if to praise it, but then gave out a mighty roar.

Jenos stepped back when he felt it. The Void.  
A darkness started to creep around all around him.

"No…."

Jenos saw three constellations in the night sky before it was consumed by the darkness. He then looked straight ahead at the man as he held the planet in his hand and crushed it.

"Who… are you?" Jenos murmured.

The man turned back.

Jenos saw those eyes.

Those eyes.

Those pitch red eyes.

Then nothing.  
Jenos returned to the normal world and his visionary projection had ended. The Scorpion constellation had stopped glowing and returned to normal.

But Jenos had not.

His mind raced to comprehend the nature of the vision that was laid out before him. He started recollecting all the details he saw.  
He was sure the Void was present.  
And so was he…

His mind shifted to the constellations. What were they again?  
The Geese.  
The Ox.  
And The King.

Jenos quickly deciphered the meaning of these constellations.  
The Geese meant journey, as in the world he came from the Geese came and went with the seasons.  
The Ox meant vitality or strength, as oxen were the prime animal of labor.  
The King…. Meant importance, a person or thing of principality.

"No. No!" Jenos gasped.

He knew what it all meant.  
He was returning, and he had his eyes set on his homeworld.

* * *

 **Hello Everyone!  
I return with a Paladins fanfiction.  
Hope you enjoy.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Grand Scheme**

 **Chapter 2**

* * *

Jenos had no time to waste, he had to search his homeworld for any clues to this warning. With haste he raced through space to return to the land of his upbringing.

He needed to find out when and where the fallen one would return, and with the vision all sights were set on that planet.

The Realm the mortals called it, but to Jenos it was an important place far beyond their comprehension.

"It is best to start from square one." The Ascended said to himself as he reached the vicinity of the planet, "If anyone has seen anything, it should be within those who are still following me to this day."

Jenos darted downward in a blue beam of light.

000000000

The night sky shone over the Realm as the moon hovered over a large mountain.

This mountain was familiar to Jenos, for it was where he attained his wisdom and power. So far, all he knew is that the mortals had consecrated this as a holy ground in his honor.

Jenos saw that it was empty, save for one person sitting at the edge of the cliff near some buildings. Without hesitation, he shot down and stopped right in front of the person.

It was a large man, gruffly built with no hair but a had a goatee on his chin.

Jenos did not speak but instead translated his vision into the man's mind. His glowing eyes pierced the human's with power, but with a certain degree of control as to not overwhelm him.

It only took a few minutes before the man was released and left dazed.

"I have given you the knowledge that only a god has gained." Jenos spoke when he felt the man had gained his bearings, "I ask you to tell me if you have received a similar vision!"

However, the man only fell to his face before him.

"Rise." Jenos spoke, "I do not require honorifics now. I require your cooperation." He raised his hand. "I need know if you understand the nature of this vision."

"No." the man responded, "And I haven't seen anything like it."

Jenos looked down to the ground.  
"That is a shame."

"Are you… that man who ascended to the stars long ago?" the man asked, "Master Jenos?"

Jenos looked back up.  
"I am he of who you speak of, but I have no time for introductions. Your world is in grave danger."

"Yes it is, there's this big civil war going on!" the man interrupted, "Everything's gone downhill-"

"Silence!" Jenos responded, "Mortal concerns are none of mine. I require someone who has gained clues as to what I have revealed to you!"

"I got nothing."

Jenos sighed and ascended back to the heavens.  
"That was a wash. Perhaps I should not have trusted one man to this. Mortals will never understand the concepts of the Grand Scheme. Plus, it would be unwise to divulge on the terror that is the Void." Jenos looked down and saw the burly man run down the monastery's steps.  
"He must be going to tell the others on my return. What will the mortals think of the person they venerate returning to them? Should it even matter to me?"

The Ascended floated back to his usual meditation spot.

"I must seek the answers I need. It appears only I can discern these times."


End file.
